Therefore it may fairly be held that even if the methods of the suffragettes were really adequate to secure women's suffrage, the attainment of the franchise by those methods would be a misfortune. The ultimate loss would be greater than the gain.
If we hold the foregoing considerations in mind it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that neither in their direction nor in their nature are the methods of the suffragettes fitted to attain the end desired.
We have still, however, to consider the other side of the question.
Whenever an old movement receives a strong infusion of new blood, whatever excesses or mistakes may arise, it is very unlikely that all the results will be on the same side. It is certainly not so in this case.
Even the opposition to woman's suffrage which the suffragettes are responsible for, and the Anti-Suffrage societies which they have called into active existence, are not an unmitigated disadvantage. Every movement of progress requires a vigorous movement of opposition to stimulate its progress, and the clash of discussion can only be beneficial in the end to the progressive cause.
But the immense advantage of the activity of the suffragettes has been indirect. It has enabled the great mass of ordinary sensible women who neither join Suffrage societies nor Anti-Suffrage societies to think for themselves on this question.
Until a few years ago, while most educated women were vaguely aware of the existence of a movement for giving women the vote, they only knew of it as something rather unpractical and remote; its reality had never been brought home to them.
When women witnessed the eruption into the streets of a band of women—most of them apparently women much like themselves—who